April 23, 2018 is D-Day for Truckers

This could soon be the headline read by millions of truck drivers across the country as the Denham Amendment moves to the floor next week, as early as Tuesday, April 24 for vote. Voting could extend to the end of week however, Friday 4-27-18.

This amendment, slipped in to H.R. 4, the FAA Re-authorization Bill, will overturn State Laws that require workers to be paid for all hours worked. Instead, motor carriers would only have to pay drivers for the time they spend driving; no additional pay would be required for any additional work such as post or pre-trip inspections or detention time.

Monday, April 23rd is the last day for drivers to call in and reinforce their objection to the Denham Amendment before it most likely will go to the floor on Tuesday for vote. The war against truckers wages continues via the ATA and their lobbying with Congressman Jeff Denham (R) of California.

The ATA is banking on this sixth time around to pass due to sneaking it into the hundreds of pages of the FAA bill and its many amendments at the last moment. The attempt has failed five times before due to so many drivers making the call. It can fail again if they do the same.

By: Allen Smith

Allen Smith is a 37 year veteran who started at an early age in a household goods family moving business. He began driving straight trucks in 1977 and moved to the big rigs in 1982.
His experience within the industry includes; owner operator, company driver, operations manager, and owner of a long distance HHG moving business, taking many of the long haul moves himself when needed.
Allen Smith, a truck driver advocate who is driven by the desire to help others succeed within an industry where injustice, unrewarded sacrifice, and lack of respect and recognition exists.
Allen and his wife Donna are hosts of Truth About Trucking ”Live” on Blog Talk Radio. Other websites include AskTheTrucker, TruckingSocialMedia, NorthAmericanTruckingALerts, TruthAboutTrucking, and many Social Media websites.
In 2011 Allen and Donna hosted the first Truck Driver Social Media Convention, designed to create unity and solutions for the trucking industry. This is now being extended through the North American Trucking Alerts network as those within the industry join forces for the betterment of the industry.
Allen strongly supports other industry advocates who are also stepping up to the plate to help those who share honesty, guidance and direction. He believes that all those involved in trucking need to be accountable for their part within the industry, including drivers, carriers, brokers, shippers, receivers, etc…
The list of supporters and likeminded people grow daily, networking together and sharing thoughts and ideas for the betterment of trucking. He has coined the popular phrase "Raising the standards of the trucking industry"

Am I missing something, but truck drivers don’t normally get paid for pretrips and post trips. Company voluntary pays detention as a way to recruite and keep drivers.

The whole system is so dangerous. Nobody performs pretrips, because obviously there is no pay. A person can work 14hrs and drive, which is insane.

They need to have drivers get paid per hour rather than mile. It would make the roads much safer instead of drivers pushing themselves to hard, so they can get more miles. It’s the stupidest setup and no wonder there are so many deaths on the roads involving trucks.

This is the most absurd ,
Thing I’ve ever heard ,u do believe that if any one of you had to spend 30 days with a trucker you might change your mind ,I believe you should have to work on a rig for 30 days. Thank you

If you want fair labor standards vote for the Democratic party
I wish people would wise up , but guns white supremacy and the “don’t tax the wealthy because “I might be rich some day” fairy tale. We need economic progressive policies forget the stupid social issues.fair labor and realistic wages are not socialism and good policy

All truckers should go on strike. We need to make money just as this Senator or Congressman. We have families, bills, expenses just as he does. Amazingly, take away his pay when he retirel, even now, allow him to suffer as we are going to. Clearly, I am against and say no to passing this bill.

This is just another example our lying elected officials do in order to past their greedy pockets by cheating the American worker specifically Truckers. We should be paid by the hour for all the time we are on the road…If ever we woman and men how work hard in the industry should raise a nationwide protest it is now..we can not and must not allow this to happen. The C B Radio, Phone Calls, TV News stations all over America should be broadcasting this great injustice. Americans all over this great country should be made aware of the underhanded methods that are being used to cheat the hard working tax payers. The A T A should ashamed of themselves. Let’s come together and let them know, We will not stand for this

The truck driver shortage is bad enough with many senior drivers up for retirement and only a handful to replace them. I’m a young driver with 2 years experience and if this bill passes I’ll quit. I’ve been thinking about quitting anyway because it doesn’t pay the bills. They’re easier jobs out there that pay twice as much. RIP trucking industry.

The truck driver shortage is bad enough with many senior drivers up for retirement and only a handful to replace them. I’m a young driver with 2 years experience and if this bill passes I’ll quit. I’ve been thinking about quitting anyway because it doesn’t pay the bills. They’re easier jobs out there that pay twice as much. RIP trucking industry.

Thus is so unfair to truckers that they don’t get paid for actual time worked or even detention time. Detention time is so important to truckers because it keeps the shipper and receivers on a time schedule without that truckers would burn all their available drive time at these site. Not only that truckers bring you everything without out us what will you get so why not give us the respect we deserve

I wish you would quit referring to the industry as Truckers, our breed has all but died, this new age breed are drivers at best. They won’t and cant stand up for the industry, the turnover rate in the industry’s something like 80% and the rate of Americas Truckers leaving the industry is about 60%. When you talk to those of us out here that have seen the industry destroyed you need to speak to those that have ACTUALLY been out here at least 20 years not 20 weeks as most of the ones tall yall to. You say I sound bitter, I am these big companies keep telling about a driver shortage, but yet they keep buying more and more trucks. They are wrong there isn’t a driver shortage but a TRUCKER shortage. As far as the pay it’s about the same as we got 20 years ago. I made 6 figures last year, because of my experience and knowledge I can write my own way. I am a company Trucker for a real HEAVY HAUL company not a big corporate group.
How does anyone see the industry get any better when these so called schools do not spend the time training these new age steering wheel holders for this industry, and then these giant companies put a guy in the position of being a TRAINER with just a month or so of driving.
I could go on but what’s the point yall spew your propaganda like running water and the public eats it up not knowing the real truth DANGERS they face everyday.
Just so you know I started TRUCING in 1983.

To whom it may concern the denim Amendment is stealing money out of the koppers of truck drivers everywhere it’s part of our job and we should be paid for it I don’t know just you senators and congressmen working for nothing but that’s what this amendment will do truck drivers make this work for nothing please put a stop to the Denham Amendment

Every aspect of our work is criticized, scrutinized, objected and controlled. We are abused, raged at, shot and killed, robbed and underappreciated. All this just so everyone has a home, things to fill it with, a car and all the things to put in it and keep it running, food to buy and things to cook it with and preserve that same foos. Health is the one thing that people want but we drivers are the ones to bring you the hospitals building materials, machines to monitor your health, medicines to keep you healthy and treat the most deadly diseases. Why then when we bring everything to your door step (which you wouldn’t have) by trucks would you deny us a living wage for the hard work we do just so you can live In comfort. This bill should be thrown in the trash and never brought back into light of day. Maybe if the politicians went without every once in awhile they would realize what it men’s to work for a living.

This is an outrage!!! You sit and do nothing yet us tax payers pay you!! Truckers pay way more in taxes, give more to the economy and give up family time to get your products to its destination. Yet you law makers want to cut our throats. I say we cut your pay checks to 15,000.00 a year, you have to have same insurance as the rest of US citizens. Every law passed you too will follow.

How dare them. Paul Ryan is getting
Ready to retire with full retirement at 48 and they want to chip away what little extra we make? They bring in foreign drivers to take our jobs and expect us to continue to take it. Well the Consumers better beware, because this could lead to empty shelves in their stores.

Truck drivers work hard staying up working long hours staying away from home .you think we like that we already get under paid getting paid by the load or a percentage thats not right sometimes i have to be out there working 18 hrs only get paid for 8 hrs thats not cool.truckers got to be paid by hr. Like everyone else end not by load or percent

We are a husband & wife team that has had the pulse of trucking for America for years, why has this shit not been on any news, until today? My wife and I just called into the Senate and voted NO!! This is crazy!!! We sacrifice our lives everday!! Wind, snow, ice, tornados, hail, sleet, heavy rains! Does anyone care what we sacrifice?!?! We have families too!!

This is horribly misleading. In fact, it is an outright lie. Have any of you actually read the language of the amendment?

The amendment prohibits states and cities from individually regulating driver hours and requires that only DOT can do that.

I support changes to HOS, and I’m interested in the REST act, but if every state can regulate our hours, we cannot get good HOS rules in place ever again, because we’d have to convince every state to change rather than just DOT.

Also, this actually helps driver pay because currently California won’t allow you to drive the full HOS hours even if you wanted to. The amendment won’t allow states to limit HOS time. There is nothing about pay for hours or detention, etc.